How many Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters will be manufactured?
Optimistic marketing figures are telling us that market opportunities of 5.000 – 6.000 F-35’s are possible. The Dutch government structurally uses a number of 4.500 JSF’s in their JSF Business Case calculations. These optimistic numbers are widely used amongst governmental and industrial organisations in several JSF Partner countries. However, when these parameter (4.500-6.000 JSF’s) wrong, the foundation of a lot a calculations, expectations, nice promises, non-binding contracts and investment decisions is wrong. After a hearing in April 2009 about the rising cost of the F-35 some Members of the Dutch Parliament commissioned the independent Dutch JSF F-35 expert Johan Boeder a report JSF market analysis: how many JSF’s will be produced”. Focus of this report The author shows that the early JSF Program Office and Lockheed Martin’s expectations about the JSF market opportunities were over-optimistic prior to essential JSF participation decisions in 2002. Their optimistic expectations ha
